GLASGOW music promoters Sounds in the Suburbs branch out into comedy this weekend as Edinburgh Fringe regular John Hegley presents his Heart and Sole show with support from former Herald music correspondent David Belcher’s Northern Soul sounds at the Accies Club in Helensburgh Drive. London-born Hegley began his career as a performer by busking outside a shoe shop in Hull in the late 1970s. He has produced ten books of verse and prose pieces and has been awarded an honorary Doctorate of Arts from what is now the University of Bedfordshire. Doors open at 8:00pm.

johnhegley.co.uk

NAIRN-based singer-songwriter Mia Mackintosh launches her debut EP, Society, at her hometown’s Bandstand Beer and Music festival on Saturday, April 29. The seventeen year old won Moray Firth Radio’s ‘One to Watch’ award in 2016, having reached the last sixteen in Belladrum Festival’s Bella’s Got Talent competition the previous year. She has performed at Findhorn Bay Arts Festival and at Groove Cairngorm, where she appeared in Scotland’s highest venue, the Ptarmigan Restaurant on top of Cairngorm Mountain. Society features three of Mackintosh’s own songs and was produced by Marc Clement, guitarist with fiddle band Session A9 and founder member of Blazin’ Fiddles.

facebook.com/MMackintoshMusic

EAST Nashville-based singer-songwriter Andrew Combs returns to Edinburgh in May, this time with his band following a successful solo appearance for local promoters Lonesome Highway last year. The gig at the Caves on May 6 coincides with the release of Combs’s new album, Canyons of My Mind, which was co-produced by Skylar Wilson and Jordan Lehning, the creative team behind talents including Rodney Crowell, Justin Townes Earle and Caitlin Rose. Originally from Texas, Combs is part of a community of musicians and songwriters who have created a thriving alternative music scene away from the city’s more mainstream, established music business as portrayed in the Nashville television series.

lonesomehighway.co.uk